Adding another post in this series just a week after the previous one when there had been none in five months before that may seem like struggling to catch up, and that is also part of it, but the main reason I wanted to add this now is that I just noticed that Triosphere are finally releasing new material, with a new album set to be released next month, 12 years after the previous one! And that was when I discovered and was impressed by them, so I was certain that I had included them in such a post around that time… Only to find that I hadn’t even added them on the list so far! So I’m fixing that now, making The Heart’s Dominion, from that album from 2014, the first pick, while from the upcoming album I’ll go with the title song, Oceans Above, Stars Below… Even if it sounds like there’s something wrong with the quality of the audio in that video. Either way, Ida still delivers more power than most male singers and now she looks even more confident, no longer trying to prove it. Not that the band lacked in confidence even before, of course. I still dislike those instrumental bridges, but this is pure power metal, so it is what it is, and I’d say it’s good news that they finally have something new to offer.
Moving on to Hartlight, I actually just stumbled into them today, so they definitely belong in the post because of that, even if their most recent album was released over a year ago. But at least it was in 2025, and the videos for some of the songs from it were posted less than a year ago, that also being the case for As My Will to Power Is Seen, so I’ll go with that as my first pick. And with The Land of the Star as the second pick. The vocals are weaker on other songs that I listened to, and the composition may sometimes also seem somewhat messy, if I may use the term, but there is improvement, especially when compared to their first songs, so if that will continue and they already have songs like these two now, I’d say that they’re showing quite a lot of promise.
And then there’s Haven Dream. It seemed to be a side project of Alina Gavrilenko which had been left behind after just two songs released back in 2018, and the first is recorded poorly, but now there’s new material released in the past year, more exactly in August of 2025. Just one more song, Senseless, but it counts, and the fact that it’s also a return after a long break makes including them even more fitting for this post, considering what I started it from. Unfortunately, the growler who also appeared on My Schizophrenia is back as well, and much more notably, I’d say actually taking the lead, so Senseless really isn’t something I’d listen to, but if it’s your thing, go right ahead. On the other hand, he only appears for some 25 seconds on My Schizophrenia, which is otherwise just a great song and the reason why I wanted to add them here after all. So I’m hoping that, if they will continue, they’ll get back at least to this direction, and of course most preferably without growls altogether.
It’s been five months since the previous post from this series, so it’s about time for another. And, while none of the included bands are new finds at all, it is the right time, or at least just about the last appropriate time, to include Against Myself in such a post, because I noticed that they announced back in March that they’re splitting up, but they have a last concert scheduled for August. And they even have a song released during the past year, Act II – Reflections, so I must list it as the first pick, even if there are some growls in there. And those growls are coming from their current vocalist, so I initially meant to go way back for the second pick, but I couldn’t do that when this vocalist just sounds so much better, at least when she doesn’t growl, and since I quickly found a song without growls, I’ll go with that one, The Tempest, for the second pick. So what I have to say is that they lacked a fair bit of strength in their earlier years, but they gained it with this vocalist, and they seemed to gain confidence, polish and complexity as well, the problem being that they also “gained” those growls.
The next band is Glasya and they actually have an album released within the last year, so my first pick, Hunt of the Haunted, is from it, while for the older song I’ll go with From Enemy to Hero. Their vocalist is really good, but they seem to regularly feature others alongside her, which is one thing that leads to plenty of variety between the songs, though not the only one. My problem with it is that some of those other vocalists add some growls, which also happens on Hunt of the Haunted, but on that one they’re brief and actually don’t bother me. And on From Enemy to Hero there are no growls and the pairing of voices works out really well.
On the other hand, I stretched things when it comes to Visionatica, because their most recent album was released over a year ago, though at least it was in 2025. But I’ll list the two picks the other way around, starting with their first song, She Wolf. From that album from 2025 I’ll go with Sympathy for the Devil, which seems all right, but something struck me as weird about the other songs that were officially posted, their vocalist seeming to have gotten worse and quite clearly wanting something different… And that probably wasn’t just an impression, since she decided to leave the band since then. But they do continue, with a new vocalist, so let’s see what the future will bring.
Yes, this is another awfully rushed post from this series, but the bands included in it are actual new finds that I just searched for today, because ski jumping made me wonder how many bands from Slovenia were on the list and I was surprised to find a single one, ShadowIcon, which I included in a post way back in 2013. So I had a look on Metal Archives… And, judging by the listed genres, I found basically nothing from there that I’d particularly care to include in such a post and was still active. Still, out of the few bands that I decided to check out and found to be all right, there is one with actual new material, and then there’s one that I wanted to include even if it’s no longer active, because I actually did like what I heard. That still left the issue of the third one, but after actually listening to a few other bands that at least had new material released during the past few years, the choice proved to be less difficult than I thought.
That band that actually has new material is Hellcats, and that new song is Spiderweb, while the older song that will be my second pick is Steelrider. As the name suggests, this is an all-female band and I’m tempted to say that it’s more rock than metal, not that the difference is that clear when it comes to what’s labeled as heavy metal. Either way, the sound is powerful and confident even on those much earlier songs, so they’re definitely something you can listen to if you like the genre.
Moving on to Aperion, they unfortunately seem to no longer be active, and in fact their only album was released back in 2010, but judging by Black Flies and Fairytale Mind that’s quite a pity. Often originality doesn’t work out well, but in this case it does add to the value, the instruments used actually making the overall sound stand out, while the vocals are great and the performance is polished, so I really wish they’d have released much more.
And I’ll go with SkyEye as the third band. It’s an all-male group, so no female vocals here, and their most recent album, from which I’ll pick Nightfall, is from 2024. And in order to make it easier for myself, but also to illustrate their improvement, I’ll go way back and pick Jerusalem as the second song. I guess you could say that their newer songs are more commercial, but they also gained in polish and it is something that you can listen to without problems.
The year’s first post from this series is obviously another rushed one, which by now should go without saying, but it does at least include one actual new find and all of the bands are once again from the same country… Which is yet again Greece, same as in post number 69, and it does include the band I skipped from that post. On the other hand, the third band split up a long time ago, but I decided to include them because the similar name made me check and I keep thinking that someday I should go through the list and decide which bands that are clearly no longer active I want to include in such posts, in which case I should actually get around to doing so, and remove the rest, and I didn’t want to remove this one. But there is one band that I did remove from the list now, and not because it split up, but because it actually has new material but it just didn’t seem good enough.
To start with the actual new find, that’s Narkissus Fall and they only have three songs released, so it was easy to pick, especially when only King of Ashes is actually recent, so I only had to select one of the other two as the second pick and I decided to go with Orchid’s Tale. Either way, while there are a few slips and I wasn’t keen on that brief spoken part and the instrumental bridge from King of Ashes, their overalll sound is surprisingly confident and polished and it’ll be interesting to see what they’ll release next.
The second band, Hand of Fate, is the one I skipped from that previous post, and my first pick, from their recent album, is My Illusion’s Manifest. Admittedly, I actually listened to that album and that’s one of the two songs that stand out, but they do show what they can do if they stick to a smoother sound, for lack of a better term, and do without the male vocals. As for the second pick, that’s No Plaything, and while the description seems to list that version as being a 2022 remix of the actual song from their first album, that better production value does show and I couldn’t dismiss it in favor of another, and otherwise my earlier comments stand.
As for the band that split up long ago, that’s Hand of God and it seems that their only album was released back in 2013, though Start Again was initially released a few years earlier and also has an actual video, so I’ll go with that as my first pick, while No Regrets will be the second. The sound is somewhat harder than what I’d prefer, the fact that it’s basically the guitarist‘s project showing in that way, but the vocalist definitely fits that style as well, and the whole package goes together quite nicely, which was why I decided that I couldn’t just dismiss them now that I felt that I had to make a choice.
This is probably the year’s last post in this series, and it’s obviously once again rushed, but it actually includes what for me are two new finds, since I stumbled into the first one just this week and into the second probably in early November, and definitely after writing the previous post from the series. On the other hand, the band that I mentioned skipping over in that post remains skipped over, because I happened to stumble into some new material from one that I’ve been meaning to include in such a post for many years, so that’s the third one, I just don’t want to put four in a post, and looking for a fifth is definitely out of the question just now.
That first band is Dirkschneider & the Old Gang, and back in 2020, when they released an EP, it was apparently just meant to be a one-off charity side project of veteran Udo Dirkschneider, yet it has developed into a full-fledged project and recently released a full album. So I’ll go with the song that I stumbled into, Blindfold, as my first pick, while the second, from that older EP, will be Where the Angels Fly. Of course, the level of polish and confidence goes without saying when such veterans are involved, but I wouldn’t have paid attention without a female vocalist, so the fact that the much younger and less experienced Manuela Bibert keeps up is what interested me the most.
The second new find is Remina, and if Heike‘s haunting vocals and that overall sound seem familiar, it shouldn’t come as a surprise, and the other band members have been working together in other projects as well. So, if you know what to expect, rest assured that they deliver. And if you don’t, or if you just want my usual two picks anyway, I made it easy for myself and went with the only one that has an actual video, Silence and the Silver Sea, from their recent album, and The Endless City, which is the only one from their first album that at least has a lyric video.
As for the band that I’ve been meaning to mention for years, that’s SEVI and their recent release, from their upcoming album, is Vampire Love, so that’s my first pick. And I’ll go with Broken Wings as the second one, in part because I have this feeling that it’s the song that made me add them on the list way back then, though I’m obviously not in the least certain of it. Either way, they’ve been around since 2010 and I wonder why don’t they have a page on Metal Archives, since I don’t see why they’d be rejected. But that’s not my problem, so I’ll just say that confidence should once again go without saying after all this time, and while they may not be that memorable in terms of the overall sound, the powerful vocals may actually stand out.
